Daytona International Speedway is one of two superspeedways to hold NASCAR races, the other being Talladega Superspeedway.[11] The standard track at Daytona International Speedway is a four-turn superspeedway that is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) long.[12] The track's turns are banked at 31 degrees, while the front stretch, the location of the finish line, is banked at 18 degrees.
For the first time since 1971, NASCAR will start a season without an exclusive primary sponsor for its top division beginning with the 2020 Daytona 500. But don’t be fooled; a new decade has brought fresh optimism and excitement for a sport that feels like it’s finally turned a corner.
Television ratings, after years of cratering, were up 2 percent during the FOX portion of the schedule last year. (NBC’s coverage was flat after the sport’s championship race failed to bring in any fresh faces). 14 events had an increase in viewership last season, the most in any one year since 2013. The sport still averaged 3.3 million viewers over the course of its 36-race schedule; by comparison, the most recent NBA regular-season broadcast on ABC (Saturday’s Lakers game) pulled in 2.88 million.
Economically, Cup Series ownership remained its most stable in almost a decade. Teams chose to exercise a four-year extension on their charter agreement — it now matches the length of the TV contract as their working relationship with NASCAR continues to improve. Scheduling-wise, some ambitious ideas for 2020 (doubleheader weekend at Pocono Raceway, changing the season finale to one-mile ISM Raceway in Phoenix) are precursors to an even more dramatic schedule shakeup in 2021. The Gen-7 project is also a year away, the next evolution of NASCAR’s main chassis that all hope improve competition and reduce an ever-increasing dependence on aerodynamics.
On the racetrack, the sport begins with a Daytona 500 that feels like the most wide-open in recent memory. The Busch Clash, season-opening exhibition was a Demolition Derby of sorts in which only six cars finished the race; Erik Jones’ Toyota emerged the winner. A Ford of Joey Logano won the first Duel, pushed to victory by a fellow Blue Oval driver (Aric Almirola) before the Chevy pairing of William Byron and Jimmie Johnson took the second Duel.
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